A blog about an actress, silent film, and the Jazz Age; with occasional posts aboutthe Ziegfeld Follies, Denishawn, Frank Wedekind and Lulu, Hollywood, Weimar Germany,and film history, as well as other locales, topics and times with references tobooks, comix, music, art, and history, as written by Thomas Gladysz.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Diary of a Lost Girl to show in Brooklyn

The Diary of a Lost Girl, the great 1929 silent film starring Louise Brooks, will be shown at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of it's BAMcinemaFEST. Two screenings are set for Sunday, June 20th at 4:30 and 8 pm in the BAM Rose Cinemas. I wish I could be there. Tickets go on sale on May 17th. This from the BAM website.

Irish rock collective 3epkano (who performed their score to Metropolislast year) closes out BAMcinemaFEST 2010 with another electrifying performance to G.W. Pabst’s controversial drama Diary of a Lost Girl.

Pabst’s second collaboration with his magnetic Pandora’s Box star features Louise Brooks as Thymiane, who goes from young innocent to high-class call-girl after being raped and sent to a rigid reformatory. In this haunting examination of moral depravity in the post-WWI-era Weimar Republic, Pabst creates a potent mixture of lurid expressionism and social realism, concocting a sordid environment overrun with lecherous men and lost, loose women. Sex and violence are intrinsically linked in his powerful and controversial drama that cemented Brooks’ status as a silent-era icon.

What's interesting to note is that before she became an actress - and while still a teenager, Brooks was a dancer and a member of the world famous Denishawn Dance Company. The future actress twice danced at the Brooklyn Academy of Music while touring with Denishawn. The first time was on October 22, 1923. The company returned again on April 5, 1924. Who would have thought then that Louise Brooks would "return" all these year's later?

This blog is authored by THOMAS GLADYSZ, Director of the Louise Brooks Society. It is a continuation of the old LBS blog at LiveJournal, which began in 2002. Send comments, questions, or material to share to LouiseBrooksSocietyATgmailDOTcom